20. Chapter 20
Cade
Marcus's text arrives at seven forty-three, and I'm already in the barn checking the chalkboard when my phone buzzes.
Cleared to begin light bullpen work when you return to Boston. Looks like you are ahead of schedule by ten days.
Ten days.
I read it twice. Then three times. The numbers make sense.
Quinn's protocol has been aggressive in the right places, conservative where it matters, and my elbow has held up well.
Not just survived the work, but really responded to it.
That means Boston sooner. Fenway sooner.
Back to squatting behind the plate, calling pitches, and being the version of myself I understand.
I should feel relief.
Instead, I look out the barn door at the pasture stretching toward the mountains. What I feel isn't relief.
The ranch has become real to me in ways I hadn't expected.
Noah's coffee in the morning, always too strong because he makes it Quinn's way without thinking.
Paige's dogs underfoot at dinner, their tails thumping against the table legs.
The sound of Quinn's guitar drifting through the screen door after sunset, that progression she plays when she thinks no one is listening.
The sound of her laugh when I say something that catches her off guard.
I pocket my phone and grab my coffee from the bench. Outside, the Montana morning light is still thin and pale, the kind that promises warmth it hasn't delivered yet. I find Noah near the south fence, his truck idling while he checks something on his phone.
"Morning." He looks up, registers something in my face. "News?"
"Reyes cleared me for light bullpen work when I get back to Boston." I say it flat, testing how the words feel out loud. "Ten days ahead of schedule."
Noah's expression shifts through several things I can't quite read. "That's what you wanted, right?"
"Yeah." I lean against his truck. "It's what I wanted."
He's quiet for a moment. Then, "You don't sound like a man who got what he wanted."
I don't have an answer for that.
Noah checks his phone again, types something, then shoves it back in his pocket. "Quinn know yet?"
"Haven't told her."
"She'll be in the barn by eight to prepare for your session.
" He opens his truck door, pauses. "For what it's worth, Cade, my sister smiles differently when you walk into the barn.
Thought you should know that before you go.
" He doesn't wait for a response. "I'll have coffee on when the season's over. "
He drives off before I can respond, leaving me standing in the morning light with my coffee going cold and the mountains watching like they have all the time in the world.
Quinn is at the chalkboard when I walk into the barn, her back to me, writing something in her precise handwriting. Week eight. Day three. The compression sleeve is already laid out on the treatment table next to the resistance bands, everything in its place, everything organized.
"You're early," she says without turning around.
"Couldn't sleep."
She glances over her shoulder, her expression shifting, clinical composure dropping into place a half-second too late. "Your elbow?"
"No. My head."
That makes her turn fully. She's wearing her usual session clothes, practical and unremarkable, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that exposes the line of her neck. I've memorized that line. The slope of it. The movement when she swallows.
"Marcus texted," I say.
Her hand stills on the chalk. "And?"
"Reyes cleared me for light bullpen work when I get back to Boston." I watch her face carefully. "Ten days ahead of schedule."
The silence stretches between us. She sets the chalk down with precise care, wipes her hands on her thighs, and when she looks at me again her expression is professionally neutral in a way that makes my chest ache.
"That's excellent progress." Her voice is steady. Clinical. "Your tissue response has been exceptional. We should celebrate."
"Quinn."
"The protocol worked exactly as designed." She moves to the treatment table, starts organizing things that are already organized. "Your compliance rate was remarkable, especially compared to your prior history."
"Quinn."
"I'll need to file the progression notes with Reyes's office before end of day. The documentation should reflect the timeline acceleration and the contributing factors, including the low-stress environment and the consistency of the protocol implementation."
I cross the distance between us in three steps and catch her hand before she can rearrange the resistance bands again. She goes still. Not pulling away, but not relaxing either.
"Tell me what you're thinking," I say quietly. "The real thing. Not the clinical summary."
Her jaw works. I watch the muscle flex, watch her eyes drop to where my fingers wrap around her wrist. The rubber band is there, the one she snaps when she's trying to hold herself together. She hasn't snapped it yet.
"I'm thinking," she says slowly, "that ten days ahead of schedule means you'll be back in Boston sooner. Behind the plate sooner. Being the version of yourself you came here to get back to."
"And?"
"And that's a good thing." She meets my eyes. "That's what this was for."
"Is it?"
The question hangs in the air between us. I'm still holding her wrist. She's still not pulling away. The barn smells like hay and antiseptic and the sharp Montana air coming through the open door, and somewhere outside I can hear cattle moving in the distant pasture.
"Tell me what you're thinking," she says, turning it back on me. "The real thing."
I think about the text from Marcus. The relief I should feel and don't. What I felt looking at the mountains this morning had nothing to do with my elbow, and I haven't stopped thinking about it.
"I'm thinking that maybe I don't want to go back. And I don't know what to do with that."
Her breath catches. Just slightly. Just enough that I know she's heard me.
"Cade."
"I know what baseball means. I know what being behind the plate means. But I spent twenty-four years making that the only thing that mattered, and then I came here and..." I stop. Then start again. "You asked me once who I was if I wasn't the guy behind the plate. I didn't have an answer then."
"And now?"
"Now I think I'm the guy who wants to be wherever you are."
She pulls her wrist free. Not roughly, but deliberately. Creating space. Creating the distance she thinks she needs.
"You can't mean that." Her voice is careful. Controlled. "You're in the middle of a recovery that's been consuming your entire focus. Your perspective is skewed by proximity and intensity and the fact that you've been isolated from everything familiar."
"Quinn."
"This happens. Patients develop attachments to their care providers. It's documented. It's normal. It doesn't mean anything beyond the therapeutic relationship."
"Is that really what you think this is?"
She doesn't answer. Her hands are at her sides, fingers flexing over her wrist band but is refusing to give herself the outlet.
"I'm going to ask you something," I say, "and I need you to answer honestly. Not clinically. Not professionally. Just you."
She waits.
"When you think about me leaving, going back to Boston, being that much closer to all of this being over, what do you feel?"
The silence stretches. I watch her throat move as she swallows. Watch her eyes flicker to the door, the window, anywhere but my face. I watch the precise control she holds so carefully start to fray at the edges.
"It doesn't matter what I feel." Her voice is barely above a whisper. "I'm your therapist. My feelings are professionally irrelevant."
"But you have them."
"Cade."
"You have them, Quinn. I can see it. Every time I walk into this barn. Every time we're on that porch with our guitars. Every time you look at me like you're trying to figure out whether to run toward something or away from it."
"Stop."
"Why?"
"Because I can't." Her voice cracks on the last word.
Just slightly. Just enough. "I can't have this conversation while you're still my patient.
I can't compromise everything I've rebuilt just because you're standing there looking at me like that and saying things that make me want to forget every boundary I've ever set. "
"What if I don't want to be your patient anymore?"
She stares at me. "What?"
"What if I called Reyes right now and told him to transfer my case? What if I finished the last three weeks with someone else and showed up here as just a guy who wanted to take you to dinner?"
"You can't do that. Your recovery."
"Is ahead of schedule. My elbow is fine, Quinn. The protocol worked. You made it work." I step closer, not touching her but close enough that I can see the pulse jumping in her throat. "The only thing that transfer would compromise is your documentation. Your perfect record. Not my arm."
"That matters. My record matters."
"I know it does. But does it matter more than this?"
She's quiet for a long time. The barn is quiet. Outside, I can hear Noah's truck returning from wherever he went, the engine rumbling as it pulls into the yard and cuts off.
"Three weeks," she finally says. "We agreed to three weeks."
"I remember."
"And then you said we'd figure out what comes next."
"I remember that too."
She reaches up and touches my jaw. Just her fingertips. Just the lightest pressure, tracing along the edge where stubble meets smooth skin. I hold myself perfectly still, letting her set the pace, letting her decide.
"I need you to finish this right." Her voice is steadier now. Resolved. "I need the documentation to be complete and unquestionable. I need Kristen to have nothing she can use. I need to prove that I can want something and not let it destroy everything I've worked for."
"And after that?"
Her thumb brushes across my lower lip. "After that, Cade Sullivan, I'm going to let you take me somewhere that isn't a clinic or a barn." She smiles, small and real and devastating.
I catch her hand before she can pull it away, turn my head just enough to press a kiss to her palm. Her breath stutters. I feel it against my cheek.
"Three weeks," I say against her skin.
"Only fifteen days, actually." She reclaims her hand, steps back, and reaches for the resistance bands like nothing happened. Like my whole world hasn't just rearranged itself. "Now get on the table. You still have a session to complete."
I laugh. Can't help it. And when I climb onto the treatment table, I catch her smiling at her clipboard in a way that makes fifteen days feel like nothing.
Noah calls us in for lunch an hour later, and when I walk across the yard toward the house, I can feel her watching from the barn door. I don't look back. I don't need to.
The text I send to Marcus is short: I'll be ready. See you in Boston.
But when I look up at the mountains, I'm already thinking about the first day she's no longer my therapist.